Winter (75 page)

Kinney clubbed him over the head with the butt of his own rifle. Iko jumped back as the guard sprawled face-first on the ground.

“I feel like I should be going with her,” said Kinney.

Snarling, Iko stepped over the fallen guard and jabbed a finger at his chest. “I have known her a lot longer than you have, mister, and if there’s one of us who should be going with her, it’s
me.
Now open these doors.”

One eyebrow—dark and thick—shot upward. She could see him struggling to say something, or
not
say something. He gave up and turned away, shoving the wooden board through the handles. He hauled open the door.

Iko took two steps into the great hall and froze.

The room was not filled with hundreds of Lunar aristocrats and Earthen leaders and her handsome emperor. In fact, only a few dozen vibrantly dressed Lunars stood at the far end of the room. The rest of the floor was littered with chairs, many of them on their sides so there was hardly any space to walk in, making it difficult to traverse.

“He made us!” a Lunar woman cried, drawing Iko’s attention. “We didn’t want to help the Earthens but he threatened to bomb the city. Oh, please don’t tell the queen.”

Iko glanced back, but judging from the way Kinney’s mouth had fallen open, he was as surprised as she was. She started forging a path through the fallen chairs, and it occurred to Iko that whoever had scattered them had likely done it intentionally, to slow down anyone who tried to pursue them.

As they got closer, Iko saw an open door behind an enormous altar—a curtain pulled across it would normally have kept it hidden.

“That door leads into the servants’ halls,” said Kinney, “but they should have been guarded too.”

“Oh, you look
terrible
!” the first woman screamed, covering her mouth as she took in Iko’s injuries. “Why would anyone glamour themselves to look like
that
?”

Before Iko could process an indignant response, Kinney said, “Emperor Kaito is taking the other Earthens to the ports?”

The Lunars nodded, a few pointing to the open door. “That way,” said the offensive woman. “You can catch them if you hurry. And don’t forget to tell Her Majesty that
we
stayed behind!”

They ignored her and barreled toward the door.

Iko started to look up the most direct route to the ports, but it became obvious that Kinney knew which way to go, so she allowed him to lead. They hadn’t been running for long before her audio sensor picked up on voices echoing down the corridor.

They turned a corner and Iko saw the source of the noise up ahead—here were the hundreds of Lunar aristocrats, staggered in a messy line, waiting to pass through a doorway into a stairwell that would lead them down, down to the sublevels beneath the palace.

Among the chatter, her audio input recognized a voice.

Kai.

She picked up her speed. The Lunars, who didn’t notice her until she was right behind them, cried out with surprise, many throwing themselves against the walls to let her pass.

“Kai!”

The crowd shifted. Kai and his adviser, Konn Torin, stood beside the stairwell door, urging the crowd to move faster, to keep pace.

His eyes collided with her. Relief. Happiness. “Iko?”

She threw herself into Kai’s arms, for once not caring about the singed paneling on the side of her face or the holes in her torso. He squeezed her back. “Iko. Thank the stars.”

Just as fast as he had embraced her, he pushed her back to arm’s distance and glanced past her shoulder, but his joy fell when he saw only Kinney at her side. “Where’s Cinder?”

Iko, too, glanced back. Kinney was sneering contemptuously at Kai’s hand on Iko’s broken arm. She pressed her lips into her own sneer. “She’s looking for Levana. We think she went to the throne room.”

“Alone?”

She nodded. “She wanted me to make sure you were all right.”

Heaving a frustrated breath, Kai nudged Iko and Kinney against the wall, clearing a path for those Lunars still waiting to descend.

“We’re moving everyone down to the spaceship ports. It will be the safest place while the fighting continues and keep any more puppets out of Levana’s hands.” He squeezed Iko’s hand, and her wiring buzzed with delight. “Do you think you’d be able to open the ports to let the ships out if I got you down there?”

Kinney answered before she could. “I know the access code.”

Iko turned to him.

“I’ve had pilot training,” he said, with a nonchalant shrug.

Kai gave him an appreciative nod, and if he was stunned that a royal guard was helping them, it didn’t show. “Then let’s finish this, and go find Cinder.”

Eighty-Six

Jacin was holding her hand, his fingers strong and tense, like he was afraid she would vanish if he loosened his grip. They emerged with the flood of people out of the maglev tunnels into Artemisia Central. Winter’s childhood home. Jacin’s too. She felt like a ghost. She felt like a conqueror.

It had taken hours for them to traverse Luna’s terrain, visiting dozens of the nearest sectors, spreading the word of Selene’s survival and the call to arms and asking the people to stand with them. It had taken less coercing than she’d expected. Already spurred on by the first video Cinder had broadcast and incensed by Levana’s attempt to have the princess murdered—again—the people were in a frenzy by the time Jacin and Winter arrived to tell them their news. Many were already on their way to the capital.

No sooner had she and Jacin broken onto the surface than the people took off sprinting toward the palace, roaring and gripping their weapons. Winter tried to keep pace with them, but Jacin’s grip tightened and pulled her to the side, keeping her sheltered from the teeming crowd.

The courtyard in front of the palace was already a graveyard, though there were still people struggling to go on fighting. A battalion of thaumaturges and countless wolf soldiers wasted no time launching themselves at the new arrivals, and those brave war cries from the front lines were quickly turned into screams. There were more coming still, pouring out of the tunnels and into the streets, and Winter recognized many of her own soldiers trying to rip the mutants away from their allies. Confusion reigned. Thaumaturge-controlled civilians turned into enemies, and it was sometimes impossible to tell which of the wolf soldiers were on their side.

Claws ripping open a person’s chest.

A bullet tearing through the side of a woman’s face.

A spear impaling a man’s abdomen.

Howls of pain and victory, indistinguishable. The tangy smell of blood. Still the people came and came and came. The people she had brought there.

Winter’s head rang with it all. Her feet were rooted to the ground. She was glad Jacin had stopped her.

“The palace will be soaked through with blood,” she whispered. “The waters of Artemisia Lake will run red, and even the Earthens will see it.”

Jacin’s eyes flashed with alarm. “Winter?”

She barely heard Jacin over the din inside her skull. Prying herself away from him, she stumbled forward and collapsed over the body of one of the wolf soldiers. There was a familiarity to the set of his jaw, the dead eyes staring upward.

Brushing a lock of bloodstained hair away from the man’s brow, Winter began to wail.

It was Alpha Strom.

And it was her fault,
her fault
he was here. She had asked him to fight for her and now he was dead and—

Jacin took her elbow. “Winter, what are you doing?”

She collapsed, sobbing over Strom’s body. “I’m dying,” she whimpered, digging her fingers into the filth-crusted fabric of Strom’s shirt.

Jacin cursed. “I knew this was a bad idea.” He tugged at her, but she ripped her arm away and scanned the raging battle around them.

“I am destroyed,” she said. Tears were on her cheeks, mixing with all the blood. “I do not know that even a sane person could recover from this. So how can I?”

“Precisely why we should leave. Come on.” This time he didn’t give her a choice, just hooked his hands under her arms and hauled her to her feet. Winter slid against him, allowing him to fit her to his body. A surprising cheer called her attention toward the palace and she saw the thaumaturges fleeing back inside. Many had fallen and were lying dead or dying on the palace stairs. They were overwhelmed. There were too many people now for the queen’s minions to hold their own, just as Cinder had hoped.

Armies were falling—on both sides.

So many deaths.

Spurred on by their victory, the people rushed the palace, streaming in through the enormous doors, chasing the thaumaturges.

Winter spotted a flash of vivid red hair and her heart leaped.

“
Scarlet!
” she screamed, struggling against Jacin, though he held her firm. “No, Scarlet! Don’t go in there! The walls are bleeding!” Her word turned into shudders, but it worked. Scarlet had frozen and turned. She searched the crowd for the source of her name.

Jacin dragged Winter beneath the overhang of a dress shop and pressed her into the alcove.

“It’s not safe!” Winter screamed, reaching past him for her friend, but she could no longer see Scarlet in the swarm. She met Jacin’s panicked eyes. “It isn’t safe in there. The walls … the blood. She’ll be hurt and she’ll die and they’re all going to die.”

“All right, Winter. Calm down,” he said, smoothing back Winter’s hair. “Scarlet is strong. She’ll be all right.”

She whimpered. “It isn’t just Scarlet. Everyone is going to die, and nobody knows, nobody sees it but me—” Her voice cracked and she started sobbing. Hysterical. She started to collapse, but Jacin caught her and held her against him, letting her cry against his chest. “I’m going to lose them all. They’ll be drowned in their own blood.”

The sounds of fighting were distant and muffled now within the palace walls, replaced in the streets and courtyard with the moans of death and bloodied coughing. Winter’s vision was blurred as she peered over Jacin’s shoulder. Mostly bodies and blood, but also some stragglers. A few dozen people picking their way through the destruction. Trying to tend to those who were still alive. Pulling bodies off other bodies. A girl in an apron—surprisingly clean—pulled the buttons off one of the thaumaturges’ black coats.

“I should have left you with the lumberjacks,” Jacin muttered.

The girl in the apron noticed them, startled, then scampered off to the other side of the courtyard to rifle through some other victims’ pockets. A servant from the city, Winter guessed, though she didn’t recognize her.

“I could have been you,” Winter whispered after her. Jacin’s fingers dug into her back. “The lowly daughter of a guard and a seamstress. I should have been her, scavenging for scraps. Not royalty. Not this.”

Sandwiching Winter’s face in both hands, Jacin forced her gaze up to his. “Hey,” he said, somehow stern and gentle at the same time. “You’re my princess, right? You were always going to be my princess, no matter what you were born, no matter who your dad married.”

Her eyes misted. Reaching up, she folded her fingers over Jacin’s forearms. “And you are always my guard.”

“That’s right.” The faintest touch. His calloused thumb against her temple. Winter’s whole body quivered. “Come on. I’m getting you out of here.”

He started to pull away, but she dug her fingertips into his arms. “You need to help Selene and Scarlet and the others.”

“No. Either she’s winning or she’s losing. My presence won’t sway it at this point. But you—I can take care of you. For once.”

“You always take care of me.”

His lips tightened and his attention dipped toward her scars, before he looked away altogether. He was about to speak again when Winter’s eye caught on movement.

The servant in her apron had sneaked up on them and now had an empty look in her face. She raised a bloodied knife over her head.

Winter gasped and yanked Jacin to the side. The tip of the knife slashed through the back of his arm, ripping through his shirt. Snarling, he spun to face the attacker and grabbed her wrist before she could swipe at him again.

“Don’t hurt her!” Winter screamed. “She’s being manipulated!”

“I noticed,” he growled, prying the woman’s fingers back until she dropped the knife. It landed with a clatter on the stone ground. Jacin shoved her away and she fell, collapsing on her side.

In the same movement, Jacin yanked the shoulder straps that held his gun and knife over his head and threw them as hard as he could toward the obstacle course of fallen bodies. Before they could be used against him. Before his own hands could turn the weapons against him.

“I hope you don’t think
that
will make a difference.”

Whimpering, Winter pressed herself back into the doorway.

Aimery. He was standing in the street—not smiling. For once, not even pretending to smile. Not smug or cruel or taunting.

He looked unhinged.

The servant girl, released from his control, scrambled away on her hands and knees and escaped as fast as she could into an alleyway. Winter heard her crawling turn into the hurried beat of running. Aimery let her go. He didn’t even look at her.

Jacin placed himself between Winter and Aimery, though she didn’t know why. Aimery could have forced Jacin to move aside with a tiny little thought. Aimery could toy with them as easily as pawns on the queen’s game board.

“As you are useless with your own gift,” Aimery drawled, dark eyes burning, “perhaps you do not understand that we do not require guns and knives to do damage. When you have been given the power that I have, all the world is an armory, and everything in it a weapon.”

Aimery tucked his hands into his sleeves, although he was lacking his normal composure. His expression was frazzled and angry.

“You could be strangled with your own belt,” he continued, still speaking slowly. “You could impale yourself with a serving fork. You could plunge your own thumbs into your eye sockets.”

“You think
I
don’t know the sort of things you can do?” Jacin’s body was taut, but Winter didn’t think Aimery had taken control of him.